Money Well Spent
Leon said:
I have spent way too much money on 1911s over the years trying to get them to run right. You can do all of that magazine fixin', spring changin' stuff that should have been done at the factory, to a 1911, or you can just buy a Glock that will run 100% out of the box. If the 1911 is so great, why do you have to do all kinds of tuning and modifications, even to so-called "enhanced" factory guns, to get them to run right?
I can sympathize, Leon...but it hasn't always been so. The functional issues with out-of-box 1911s seems to be a fairly recent trend, and after
spanning the period between the Good Old Days, and the New Age Ecomomics in the firearm industry, I have to lay 99% of the blame on
the drive for profit over quality.
The corporate bean counters will work all day to figure a way to save a dime on a spring or a quarter on an extractor, etc. For the record, I've had
relatively little functional problems from even the newer ones, with the
main issues being small parts breakage. Can anybody say: Supplied by the lowest bidder? I would much prefer that the price go up and the guns have the right parts.
As for all the money spent to no avail, it's common to encounter guns that have simple problems...which happens with any machine that is mass-produced...but the problem is attacked from the wrong direction. A perfect
example is the Ramp and Throat tinkerer that immediately starts grinding and polishing that area, when the ramp/throat isn't the problem at all.
It's usually the magazine...another component supplied by the lowest bidder...and by the time he gets through "tuning" it...the gun is reduced to
the status of a pretty paperweight.
Glocks feed well primarily because the barrel throat is such that it doesn't support the case head properly...which is why we hear of blown cases in the hig-pressure calibers like .40 Short & Weak. I've seen it happen twice, and found evidence of a third time, complete with blood droplets. You can
do that to a 1911 too, and it will absolutely feed any junk ammo that you
can dig up...but it's not the right way to make it feed. Just because Glock
and H&K work it that way doesn't make it the correct way.
Fine-tuning a pistol is much more productive if one knows HOW to tune it.
Knowing why a malfunction occured is the key to making sure that the gun doesn't make a habit of it, and it's pretty easy to do if the understanding is there. Too many read a magazine article, assume that they understand it, and go smith their gun to death.
And that was MY $.02 worth...
Be well,
Tuner